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Story:Star Trek: Conflict/Angel One
The New Insurrectionists, along with the Federation, go to to stop a massacre caused by a traitorous Klingon aiding the Romulans. Summary Chapter One Edward Shield is restless. He feels that this day is important for some reason, though at the moment, he doesn't know why or what its importance should be. All he knows is that it is important, and therefore he remains on the alert for anything worth noting. Upon taking the command chair, he receives a call from the on the viewscreen. It is K'hallA, who asks for Shield to beam onto the Admonitor immediately so that they may talk in private. Upon arriving, he finds Lianna Young with her in the captain's ready room and asks the nature of this meeting. Having examined the events of the past forty-six years, both Captain Young and K'hallA are adamant that the Romulan Star Empire is hatching some secret plot to make war with the Klingon Empire. From what they have gathered, they believe that an attack on Khitomer, a Klingon colony planet in what had once been a Federation-Imperial neutral zone in the late 2290s, is imminent. Shield says that this would be a bold move, even for the Romulans, especially since Khitomer is heavily equipped with planetary defenses and shielding that would halt any orbital bombardment or transport onto the planet. At this point, Young says that she believes someone on the inside will attempt to sabotage the Klingon defenses to allow the Romulans to attack. Shield states, remembering from his search of the Nox clan, that Nox might know something about this, since his father had been collaborating with the Klingons. But Nox is on the run. They corner him at the hangar bay, where he says that his first and foremost loyalty is to his own people, and his time has come. During which he, while under fire, takes a shuttle-pod and leaves the . Chapter Two Meanwhile on Earth, an assistant to the admiral tells him that there is a live-transmission feed coming in from the spy. Though cloaked in the shadows of his office, Sanders can very easily be seen smiling. He dismisses the aid and then opens the feed on his private viewer. On the other side of the quadrant, en route to Khitomer, an unauthorized transmission is detected coming from the . Young takes Nox's empty tactical station and tries to search for a trace of the transmission. The feed is live. Manfred Wess begs the admiral to be let out, saying that he's grown to fear his captain more than any torture the Brotherhood could ever contrive. The admiral says that even if he were to consider this, he wouldn't do it without some pay-off first. Wess tells the admiral that the and are going to Khitomer to stop a Romulan assault on the Klingon colony there. Wess begs the admiral again, saying that he never wanted to get caught up in a war against the Federation in the first place and just wants to live a peaceful life. But the admiral says that Wess is too valuable to be let go, and then promptly ends the transmission. Meanwhile, Young is attempting to track the signal when it cuts offline. Fortunately, she was able to pinpoint its point of origin before the signal was cut, and, taking phaser in hand, she runs off to the Senior Officers' quarters. She corners Wess; the Federation spy. He begs for mercy, saying that he was promised to be pardoned and allowed to live a peaceful life if he helped the admiral. Without another word, she vaporizes him. Just then, Liin appears. She congratulates Young on killing her tool, but says that she's been a thorn in her side for too long to be left active. Young asks Liin if she was the spy, to which Liin proudly replies that she was the first spy and that Wess may have been the first spy, but he lost heart when Gradl was killed and so she took the responsibility. Young tries to attack, but suddenly finds herself light-headed and falls to the ground. Liin laughs and thanks Young for being a good surrogate mother. Chapter Three On Khitomer, Ja'rod is making a secret communique to a Romulan commander, making certain that everything goes as planned, fearing that someone might be watching him. The code is transmitted, and the planetary shields drop, just in time for the Romulan warbirds to enter the system. Meanwhile, the , powered by the S'srellian technology, reaches Khitomer first. But the captain is out cold, the tactical officer has jumped ship and one of the helmsmen is dead. So Liin has no trouble transmitting their position to the admiral on Earth, saying that the will be arriving shortly. However, just as the words leave her mouth, the Enterprise-C drops out of warp. But it appears to be too late. The warbirds are bombarding the planet, and life-scans indicate at least one hundred Romulan life-signs down on the planet. On the Enterprise, K'hallA leaves her post and beams onto the planet. Shield takes his sword, a hand phaser and phase-rifle and takes Loghri and Rookwood with him and beams after her. Just then, the has entered the system flanked by two starships. The First Officer asks the admiral if they should fire on the Enterprise-C, but is told to stand down when he sees several Klingon Birds-of-Prey decloak around it. Thinking that he's won, he smiles with satisfaction, only to see that the Birds-of-Prey did not attack the Enterprise-C but are actually defending it from and helping it attack the Romulans. Meanwhile, on Khitomer, Nox is leading his fellow Romulans on their slaughter of the Klingons. Some are taken prisoner, most are killed on their feet without mercy. But as he goes on, fighting as he does, Nox realizes that he finds no pleasure in this. He knows what Klingons believe, and, for them, dying in battle is the greatest honor, therefore he feels no satisfaction in simply killing them. Meanwhile, K'hallA has reached the planetary defense station. When the Klingon warriors there - who have been alerted to a traitor within their midst - bar her way, she claims to be the Klingon Chancellor and says that she needs to get inside. They allow her, and tell her that only one person has ever been there. One of the warriors, a grizzled, middle-aged Klingon named Mogh, she sends to find the one who betrayed them and bring justice to him. Mogh goes off on his mission, while K'hallA takes the other guard and goes looking for Nox. She finds him, in battle with her people. Bat'leth in hand, she attacks him. All he has to defend himself with is his shot-gun and his dagger. But he does well, the katra giving him all the extra strength he needs to dominate this battle. After fighting until their weapons grew so hot that they could hold them no more, K'hallA calls Nox a gutless coward who fights for no flag and for nothing. He retorts by saying that his duty is to his people first, but she reminds him that his friends should come first, and she says that she was mistaken for honoring Y'Radu, if she chose such a worthless person as her mate. Nox tries to make K'hallA pay for those words, but the Klingoness says that he is an honorless petaQ and leaves to defend her people. Chapter Four Khitomer is in chaos. Explosions from orbital bombardment shock the planet, the sounds of death fill the air, the smell of foul-smelling pink blood being split stings the nostrils and great conflagrations of fire and debris assault the eyes. It is in this mess that Shield and his team fight their way for survival. One misstep could place one in the path of a phaser-barrage, or a torpedo bombardment. They see red-uniforms of Federation officers in what they can see. Overtaking one, a middle-aged Slav named , Shield asks him about the meaning of this. Sergey replies that the was sent after the ''Pericles'' to rescue any survivors as an act of good-will to the Klingon Empire. Just as they leave, another group beams down after them. But this is no group of humanitarians lending their aid: this is a war-party. Sanders' elite guard. Loghri easily dispatches them, but more come and in greater numbers. Rookwood jumps in to help him, leaving Shield to go forward alone. But as he goes, he is confronted by Yare' Liin. She tells him that he should have killed her the first chance he got, instead of giving mercy like a weak little expletive. Another voice tells her to stand down. It is Yakob Sanders, the admiral. But he is standing upright on his own two feet. Liin runs into his arms, covering him with kisses. She says that now that she's brought his nemesis to him, he can die and they can live together forever in the new world order he will create. Sanders agrees with her that he will create a new world order, but not one they will live in together. A sharp blade then runs Yare'ma Liin directly through the stomach, comes out her back and then goes through her heart. She has been betrayed by the last person she ever wished. When she asks why, he said that, because she is a Betazoid and therefore not human, she has no place in his world. She then falls down at his feet, dead. Shield then tells Sanders that it was foolish to come down here, especially in his condition. Sanders then laughs Shield to scorn. He remarks that he has triumphed over his terminal illness and he's more than fit to face him in battle. Sanders then says that, despite everything that Edward Shield has ever seen this past year-and-a-half, nothing has ever prepared him for this. Sanders then activates a specialized body-armor hidden beneath his uniform. Based on Relon biology, it gives him two extra legs, four giant mandibles, three tentacles, phase-reflecting scales and psionic powers. And all Edward Shield has against it is his jian. Taking off his uniform jacket, he rushes at Sanders, attempting to engage him. But, in his power-suit, he is too formidable and it seems as though he will lose this battle easily. Just then, Sanders is attacked by K'hallA. Between blows, she tells Shield to attack him now while she holds him off. Shield follows through with this and attacks Sanders. Though he is more than a match for both of them, Sanders is starting to grow overconfident. He takes Shield down to the ground, pinned under one of his iron feet, and prepares to impale him with the same bladed mandible he used to kill Yare'ma Liin. K'hallA hacks off the iron foot with her bat'leth, sending Sanders off his balance. He laughs still. He says that, even if they do defeat him, they won't survive. Turning his psionic powers on, he seizes control of the USS Pericles and pulls it down from orbit and toward the planet surface. All seems lost since a crash that size would destroy the mesa they are on. Chapter Five Just then, the shrieks out of orbit in front of the oncoming Pericles. Streaks of blue shimmer here and there as a broad-sweep transporter beam catches anyone it can, whether Klingon, Romulan or Starfleet. It misses being hit by the crashing wreckage just barely. But the tremor of the crashing starship shakes the ground, and the mesa begins to break. As the ground starts to cave in to the canyon below, Shield, K'hallA and Sanders try to climb what had once been flat-land and is now a nigh-vertical MOVING cliff-face. K'hallA manages to seize a hand-hold and tries to pull Shield onto it. But his weight, plus that of the sword he carries, and the added strain is too much, causing her arm to dislocate. When it seems as though her arm would tear off, a helping hand comes from apparently nowhere. K'holl grabs her by her shoulders and, with the help of his brothers, pulls her and Shield into their Bird-of-Prey, which they brought out of orbit to save them. As it begins to pull away, Sanders in his Relon battle-suit latches on to it, crashing it into the defense outpost. After the dust settles, Edward Shield awakens. He finds K'hallA wounded at his side and the other brothers safe, all except for K'holl whom Sanders had stabbed through the heart with his suit's mandibles. Fortunately, K'holl took K'hallA's bat'leth and ran Sanders through also. Being an Augment meant that K'holl had a humanoid physiological make-up, and therefore the wound was fatal. He told his "sister" good-bye, saying that he'll meet mother in Sto-vo-kor and tell her all about her adopted daughter, the warrior. With tears in her eyes - a first for her - she gives K'holl the Klingon death ritual. Meanwhile, Shield has brought Sanders back to consciousness. Apparently, the battle-suit was the only thing that kept his illness in check, and now, that it was destroyed irreparably, Sanders starts dying. Shield offered to save him by taking him on the Enterprise-C and getting him some treatment, but Sanders only spat in Shield's face, saying, as his last words: :I'd rather die in agony a thousand times than take help from you! Battle-weary, Edward Shield, K'hallA and her brothers leave the ruins of the defense outpost. While they go, K'hallA sees two dead warriors - Mogh and Ja'rod - who fought each other to the death. Edward Shield sees the Slav Sergey holding an infant Klingon just pulled from the rubble. Sanders may be dead, Shield tells himself, but he certainly brought a lot of people down with him. Now, at last, he has a goal, something that can be done. With this last threat out of the way, Edward Shield should head for Earth and end this destructive conflict by eliminating the corruption. En route to Earth via warp-pool, Edward Shield and Lianna Young have a long talk with Nox, who has returned to their ship. He does not apologize for leaving the ship, but informs them that, if it hadn't been for him, a lot more people would have died. When asked what he means, he tells them that, after his duel with K'hallA, he returned to the , put it on Manual Override and performed that daring bit of flying that saved so many people - both of the attackers, defenders and victims from the . For this, Shield is able to convince Young not to have him executed. She settles by forcing him to remain on the for the remainder of the journey. Upon arriving at Earth, Edward Shield and the Insurrectionists beam down to Paris where the offices of the Federation President are located. With just the senior officers, they take the President, the Federation Council and what remains of Starfleet Command hostage (which is not much, especially after they hear that Commodore Gardner committed suicide when he heard that they had beamed down into France). Edward Shield then takes the place of Yakob Sanders as admiral and petitions to have Order 865 revoked, the names of his friends cleared, especially of the students he rescued from the , and the Brotherhood of the Aryan Race disbanded. Despite all the evidence presented and despite the fact that he is reminded that this is a coup not a kidnapping, the Federation President refuses to make any adjustments to Order 865 other than allowing them to speak with and/or mingle freely with any members of the Federation and its allies without fear of death. However, the names of the students are cleared and what remains of the hierarchy of the Brotherhood of the Aryan Race are imprisoned for life. "Many lives have paid for what we have accomplished. But were it not for their sacrifice, millions more would have had to die before we could ever have reached this point: the first step on the road to peace and justice in the Federation." :Edward Shield to the Insurrectionists after they released their "hostages." Category:Star Trek: Conflict Episodes Category:Story Arc: Federation Spy